


something on your mind?

by acquiredelfroot (timeandcelery)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Celebrations, Domestic Fantasies, F/M, Fluff, Inquisition Friendship, Marriage Proposal, Non-Explicit Sex, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Uses Game Lines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25389922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeandcelery/pseuds/acquiredelfroot
Summary: She’s alive. It’s over, and she’s alive. Nothing else matters.Or: Cullen goes to a party that he doesn't hate.
Relationships: Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford, Female Lavellan/Cullen Rutherford
Comments: 2
Kudos: 56





	something on your mind?

**Author's Note:**

> I love the Trespasser elopement, but I also don't think Cullen would have waited two years, so here's this fluff where he doesn't wait at all.

The three of them watch from the battlements as the sky roils. They watch as a pillar of green rises, rises--and reaches the Breach. They watch it shut. And then--nothing. 

The waiting now is almost worse than before. The world is saved, but he doesn’t know yet if it _matters_.

Then there is a raven, cutting through the evening sky, and his world narrows down to the path of its flight. It lands on Leliana’s shoulder, and she pulls the message from its leg. There are two slips of parchment. _Maker, please_ , Cullen prays. 

Leliana smiles and hands him the smaller slip. Two words, in Rin Lavellan’s hand. _All safe._

He has to grip the stone of the battlements to stay on his feet as the relief hits him. She’s alive. It’s over, and she’s alive. Nothing else matters, not Leliana reading the second slip and frowning, not Josephine on his other side already planning the party. 

Leliana is talking. Something about Solas. He should be paying attention. “....try to track him down, and... you are not even listening to me, are you, Commander?”

“Let him have his moment, Leliana,” Josephine chides. 

“Well, now he can have all the moments he likes. Which I assume will be many of them.” Leliana rolls the parchment back up.

Yes. Many moments. More than moments. _I should marry her_ , he thinks deliriously.

Leliana fails to track Solas, but he hardly cares. All that matters is that it seems to take forever for Rin and the others to cross back through the mountains. Surely it hadn’t taken this long when they first found Skyhold. (“I am reasonably certain it took longer,” says Josephine, when he brings it up.) But finally, _finally,_ she walks back through the gates, leading her inner circle, and she looks up at them and smiles as the crowd cheers her victory. 

She climbs the stairs to them, and he can’t help himself: he gathers her into his arms, burying his face against her. The crowd cheers that too. Reluctantly, he lets her go, with the still-slightly-delirious thought that he can hold her again later. They have _time_ now.

He does, however, have to survive the party first. He can’t quite hate this one, even if he still stays toward the back of the room: it’s theirs. They did it. Rin did it. She deserves this night with her friends. “With my family,” she corrects him when he tells her that. “And we _all_ deserve it. Including you.”

As much as he wants to have Rin to himself, he can’t, so while she wanders off, Cullen eats some of Josephine’s tiny cakes and mutters his way out of conversations and drifts in the strange feeling that is relief.

Rin’s bright laughter draws his eyes back to her. She’s sitting on Bull’s shoulders, her face for once blessedly carefree, and despite himself, Cullen finds himself imagining a future. They’ve discussed it, of course, but only in hypotheticals. It seemed too much to hope for, before everything was over. 

Even now he knows it isn't really over. They have a world to rebuild, a thousand things to demand their attention, a thousand threats. Guilt swells as he imagines it, but he still does: slow sunshine mornings, whole days together, his ring on her finger, a home...

Cassandra sighs next to him, jolting him from his fantasies. "I still cannot believe it is over." She looks exhausted but happy. "You must be relieved."

Someone answers for him before he can. "There was so much fear, and then it all went away. He'll worry later, but for now he just... wants. _Maker, nothing in the world but the two of us, we’ll stay in her quarters for days--_ ” Cole breaks off abruptly. “You want more, but you’re afraid you don’t deserve it.”

“Cole.” 

Cole ignores the reproach and looks, unblinking, at Cullen. “You don’t have to be afraid. She would say yes to you. And to the house by the lake in the forest, when the world is healed. And to chil--”

“ _Cole!”_

He melts into the crowd, and Cullen tries not to think about freckle-faced, half-Elven children in a house by a lake in a forest. “Please tell me you didn’t hear that,” he mutters. 

Cassandra is quiet for a moment, then says, “Cole is right.”

“What?”

“She would say yes.”

He can feel himself going red. “You sound certain.”

“Does it surprise you that we have spoken of you while we are on the road? She would say yes.” She fixes him with an intense look, then smiles. “I am proud to call both of you friends, and it makes me glad to see how much stronger you make each other. You deserve happiness.”

“I--”

Anything Cullen is going to say is drowned out as the Chargers lead half the hall in an ear-splitting singalong. From her perch on Bull’s shoulders, Rin joins in, raising her mug joyously in the air. “NO MATTER WHAT TOMORROW HOLDS, OUR HORNS BE POINTING UP!” 

The raucous cheer following the song is interrupted by a crash as Sera falls backward off her chair, dousing Vivienne in most of a mug of ale. Cullen idly watches Rainier scrape Sera off the floor.

“Curly!” Cullen turns to find Varric approaching him, wearing an expression that definitely means he’s up to something. When he reaches Cullen, he brandishes a deck of cards and grins. “Now that we've won the war, it's time for you to win back your dignity.”

“ _Absolutely not._ ”

Talking himself out of _that_ takes a while, and by the time Varric shrugs and says, “Your loss,” the party is winding down. Cullen looks for Rin in the thinning crowd. He finds her laughing with Dorian; she hugs him, then starts toward the door of her quarters.

Cullen hurries to meet her. “You managed to slip away.” She turns and raises her eyebrows in question. “I thought I might claim more of your attention after all," he says. 

She steps toward him. “Is there something on your mind?”

“Everything,” he admits.

She smiles and leads him through the door. What he wants to say to her whirls through his head on the way up the stairs -- he wants to say everything. Do everything. Stay in here and not stop touching her for a week. Once they're in her chamber, though, all the thoughts vanish. "The battle's over," he says. "There will be a new Divine. Yet I don't care about anything other than you being alive."

She steps up against him and presses her mouth just briefly to his. When she pulls away, he finds himself following her movement by instinct. "Cullen…"

"I don't know what happens after this," he admits.

“Neither do I,” she says. 

He trails behind her to the balcony, where she stares off into the sunrise, and wraps himself around her. He's struck again by the miracle of her, alive and in his arms, as they stand there together. He tucks his face against her hair, breathing in the scent of her soap. 

After a moment, she turns in his arms and leans up until their foreheads press together. "Vhenan," she murmurs. 

"Love," he echoes back.

She disentangles herself from him and takes him by the hand, crossing back inside. "We have the day off tomorrow. Well, today."

It's news to him. "Oh?"

She smiles. “Inquisitor’s orders.”

“All right.” He lets go of her hand to start peeling himself out of his armor--he wants to feel her, soft and warm and alive against him. “Do you have plans?” he asks, working on his breastplate.

“You,” she says. “Sleep. That’s it.”

“That sounds… very good.” He waits for her to finish taking her hair down, then closes the gap between them and folds her into his arms. She sighs and sinks into him, hands closing in the cloth of his shirt, hiding her face. “Are you alright?”

“I didn’t expect to survive,” she admits. His heart twists at that, and he holds her tighter. Even though she’s safe now, the mere possibility… “I know you couldn't bear to think about it, but I was so sure I was going to my death. And maybe some people could've made peace with that, but I was terrified. And I couldn't… everyone _needed_ to believe I would make it. I couldn't take that hope away from them with my fears.” She sighs and tucks her face closer to him. “I’m sorry.”

“What could you possibly have to apologize for?” 

“It just... feels foolish to be upset about this now.”

“You’ve had more than your share of troubles," he says, stroking her ear. 

She leans into his touch and gathers herself, a faint smile crossing her face. “I suppose you're right.” She’s silent for a long moment, then lifts her head and looks up at him, green eyes tired but warm. “I won't let them ruin tonight. Take me to bed,” she whispers.

He goes to his knees for her, almost worshipful, and the rest is slower and sweeter than they’ve ever had the chance to be before. He knows that nothing he says or does can truly tell her what she means to him -- how she makes the darkness bearable, how she gentles the broken edges of him -- but Maker, he can try. Afterward, he manages to stay awake long enough that she falls asleep in his arms. _Thank you_ , he thinks. _Thank you for coming back to me._

He wakes from a blessedly dreamless sleep into golden afternoon sunlight.

“Hello,” says Rin, snuggling against him. “We're alive."

It still seems like a miracle. He looks at her--messy-haired, tired-eyed, smiling--and he's certain, more certain than he can ever remember being. Wants this more than he can ever remember wanting anything. It's out of his mouth before he realizes it. “Marry me.”

“What?” Her eyes go wide for a moment, and then she smiles, brighter than the sunlight filling the room. “ _Yes_.” 

_Yes._ He’s instantly awake, and joy bubbles through him, out of him when he speaks. “You said that.” 

Her eyes shine--tears, he realizes--and she pulls him into an embrace. He goes easily, at home in her arms. "Yes," she says again. "Yes."

 _She said yes._ “I don’t have a ring or -- you said your clan gave betrothal gifts. I don’t have anything. I didn't actually plan this,” he admits, feeling himself go red.  
  
“I don’t care,” she says, and kisses him soundly, bringing both hands up to cup his face. “I’d marry you tomorrow.”

He chuckles. “That may not be practical.”

“It wouldn’t be, and Josephine would die on the spot. But I’d do it.” She nuzzles her face into his neck. “Ma vhenan. My bond. My husband."

"Yours," he echoes, helpless.

"I will say,” she says, tracing the line of his jaw, “Lady Inquisitor Mairin Lavellan-Rutherford is something of a mouthful.” 

Hearing the name from her lips makes him a little lightheaded. “I think it sounds perfect,” he says.

"I think so too." She laces their fingers together, pressing the anchor to his palm, and is quiet for a moment, her expression peaceful. "Do you want to keep this secret, or…?"

"As if we could. Leliana probably already knows."

She laughs. "True. And even if we tried, Cole would find an inopportune moment to tell everyone. But... if you're alright with it, I want our friends to know."

He thinks about what Cassandra said. "I… I do, too."

"I'm glad. And they will be, too." Her smile turns mischievous. “Except for Varric. I think he just lost fifteen royals to Dorian.”

"What?"

"They had a bet on when you'd ask."

" _What?"_

"They've been at it for months now."

“ _Maker’s_ _breath_.”


End file.
